birth story

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I couldn’t get enough birth stories. I stayed up all night, sitting in front of my computer, scrolling message boards and blogs and reading any and all birth stories I could find.

A lot has changed since those old timey days. We have smart phones for staying up late, scrolling the internet. And podcasts aplenty, so we can pour the wonder of collective online voices straight into our ears. The future is now. I like it.

Scott got to the hospital a little after I got checked into a labor room. I think sometime around 8:30. He was excited to discover a Blues hockey game on TV. We cut cable long ago, and he usually has to listen to the game via a radio app.

Like old birthing pros, we chilled in the room with no sense of urgency. Him watching the game, me giving the yoga ball a half effort. I thought I should at least attempt to move labor along, though I doubted it would do much.

There was no rushing to set up battery operated candles or fill the room with calming music. We laughed at how mundane the routine had become.

Around 10 I decided to try to get some sleep. I requested extra blankets and reclined in the not super comfortable labor bed. I don’t know that I ever really managed to fall into a deep sleep, but I rested off and on for the next couple hours. By then, my contractions were coming every 5 ish minutes, but only 2 or 3 an hour were uncomfortable until about midnight.

I rejoiced when it was past midnight because I knew that bought us an extra night at the hospital. Kendall, my first, was born at 12:30 in the morning, so we technically got 3 nights at the hospital since the first night didn’t really count, and I was looking forward to the same scenario.

I LOVE our hospital (Baylor Scott White in McKinney, TX for those wondering). It’s like a hotel. I also have 3 other kids at home, and 3 dogs, and was in no rush at all to get out of there. Call me crazy, but I’ll take a nurse checking on me every 3 hours over 3 kids “checking” on me every 30 minutes.

Scott remarked around this time that we’d “probably have a baby by 5 in the morning” and he wondered if he should drive home before or after the morning rush hour to shower and get the big kids. I laughed in his face. “A whole lot is going to have to happen really fast for us to have a baby by then. That’s not going to happen, so don’t worry about it.”

From about midnight to 1:30 my contractions became more consistent and uncomfortable. I was having to breathe through every one by the time I called the nurse in to come check me again a little before 2. I was hoping this was a sign of a little bit of progress- at least enough to ease my fears about having to start Pitocin when the sun came up.

When she told me I was still at a 4, I felt like all my worst fears were validated. I sat on the bed, crying, convinced that I really couldn’t handle the pain of contractions after my water broke.

I remember a previous midwife telling me that your bag of water cushions things, and makes contractions more manageable, and I’ve always believed in that fully because once my water does break (usually at 8 cm), all hell breaks loose and it really, really fucking hurts. (Though this is always the start of transition for me, too.)

I cried because these contractions didn’t feel like 4 cm contractions. I was doomed.

Meanwhile, Scott the badass dad pro asked the nurse to get the shower ready. If you read my last birth story, you may remember that I labored with Lowell in an AH-MAZING shower with a million lovely shower heads. It’s a heavenly set up. So I agreed to head that way, wiping my tears on my hospital gown as I took it off.

I remember the nurse saying something like, “I have a feeling you’re starting something, not stalling.” Of course, I assumed this was a lie to get me to calm down.

As soon as I sat down, my contractions started coming on super strong and super fast, with only about 30 seconds between them. And I began my first ever campaign for an epidural.

In my mind, I was in for this kind of pain for the next 6 hours, and then they’d inevitably start me on Pitocin, and hell if I was going to go through all that only to wind up with an epidural then. Fuck that. I wanted it it asap. I just wanted to sleep.

This visibly shocked Scott for a minute, and he tried to talk some sense into me. He knew I had to be progressing. And looking back, DUH, but in that moment I was just like, STFU, and tell the damn nurse to get the damn anesthesiologist.

The nurse, also clearly knowing what was actually happening with me, asked if she could check me again. Then I heard her ask the other nurse to call my midwife and tell her to head in. I thought that was dumb and mean because my poor midwife needed sleep and I wasn’t ever going to have my baby anyway.

It had only been 20 minutes since she last checked me, but I figured sure. They could check me, and I’d still be at a 4, and then they could all leave me alone and let me get the epidural.

Good plan! Except I was at an 8.

OH. Turns out it hurts REAL bad to go from a 4 to an 8 in 20 minutes.

My mood improved greatly for a little bit. I was no longer in uncharted waters. It’s like I finally had a map in a language I understood. 8 cm and my water’s broken? This I could do. This I knew. I wasn’t going to like it, but I’d been there.

I didn’t want an epidural anymore, which is good because there wouldn’t have been time anyway. I asked the nurse to fill the labor tub for me and she was like, “Girl, no. I’m sorry. We don’t have time for that.”

So back into the shower I went, just in time for the holy-shit-why-did-you-do-this-AGAIN contractions. I have no idea what time this was… maybe I was in there from 3 to 3:30 ish? I don’t have a good grasp on time at this point.

My good mood faded, and this marked the beginning of the part of labor that feels like I’m being dragged against my will. Like, if you’re being dragged through a field of thorns, the worst thing you can do is flail and kick and fight (I’d imagine). You just have to relax into it, don’t fight it.

Dumb, lacking analogies aside, this is the part that really sucks. And I knew that. I knew that the only way out was through, and I did everything I could to let my body take over and do what it could. I didn’t like it. I cried. But I knew what I had to do.

After a few really hard contractions, I started to feel a little like pushing. I was suddenly real glad my nurse had the foresight to call my midwife in. They got me out of the shower and moved me to a birth stool. My midwife walked in after one or two contractions there, and after a couple more I knew I was going to need to push soon.

I had the option to stay on the birth stool, but I’ve only ever pushed my babies while sitting in the bed, and I needed that familiarity. I moved to the bed between contractions, and with the very next one the rest of my water broke (the first break was only a small tear), and gushed everywhere.

I dreaded what was coming next, but again, more dragging and giving up control, and just knowing I had to get through it for it to be over. Pushing, for me, is super awful. I can’t recall exactly how awful because that’s how nature tricks us into keeping our species going, but I do know that every time I’ve been there, I’ve made a mental note that it’s the absolute worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.

The positive to this is that I am a fucking boss at pushing by now. I do. not. fuck. around. I pushed for about 20 minutes with my first, 2 pushes with my 2nd, my 3rd was born with one push.

And just like the last time, I began to push and would not let up until he was out. This one was also born with only one push. I paused briefly after his head crowned and then again to slow down his shoulders – like a damn PRO, not needing anyone to remind me.

I still screamed like someone was ripping me in half from the inside, though.

I remember the nurses kept telling me to look down and meet my baby, but I am the least sentimental person when I’m trying to get a human out of me. I would meet him soon enough. I needed to focus. I needed to close my eyes and get the job done.

And then, there he was, and it was immediate relief. I cried.

Not just because labor was over, but because the whole dang thing was- the pregnancy, the anxiety about labor. It was all finally behind me. “You did it!” everyone kept cheering. They had no idea how much I doubted that I could.

“I can do hard things,” I thought to myself as I looked down to finally meet my baby.

2016 tried to dismantle me, and I’m not talking about all the celebrity deaths. It pushed me and picked at me in a lot of ways I won’t get into here. But with 10 days left, at 4:59 am, 2016 gave me Wallace Austin Krause- 9 lbs 1 oz, 21.5 inches long- and reminded me I can still do hard things.

So there I was, 4 days overdue. I had an NST at my midwife’s office, and after trying to get him to stay still long enough for a good enough reading (the nurse noted that he was the most active post-dates baby she’d ever tried to monitor), they noticed one heart decel that made my midwife go “Hmmmmm….” The verdict was they were going to send me to the hospital for a 2-hour monitoring sesh. If all looked okay, like she assumed it would, I would just go home until my body decided to kick him out.

I had all 3 other babies at 4 or 5 days past my due date, and earlier that morning I really thought it was go time for this one. I’d had some real, painful contractions for a few hours, but they went away after I took a nap. So I asked her to check me. Ever since learning I was at a 7 without even knowing it with Leyna, my 2nd, I’ve always had high hopes/some real fear that would be the case with each one after. We don’t live close to the hospital I deliver at, and I’d really like to not ever have a baby on the side of the road. Knowledge is power!

I was sitting solidly at a 3, which was no 7, but it was progress, and that was welcome news. She asked if I’d like her to strip my membranes while her gloved hand was already in the vicinity, and I excitedly agreed. I felt like labor was imminent, and I was happy to get a little push down the hill if that would help.

As I sat up, I felt a gush of fluid, but assumed it was the gel from the exam.

The plan was to head over to the hospital, but to first stop and eat something because I hadn’t had a real meal all day. As I left the office and got in my car there was another gush, then another as I was driving, and another. By the time I was in line to order my food, I looked like I’d peed my pants. I was 99.9% sure my water broke by that point, which made my meal EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, so there I stood with my pee pee pants, avoiding eye contact with people, hoping I could get my food without anyone pointing out the obvious.

I took the food to my car and scarfed it down while I called Scott. “Hey! I’m headed to the hospital to get monitored, but they’re going to admit me, I’m sure. My water broke.”

Okay, now what you need to know is that my water has NEVER broken before I’m at a solid 8, on the cusp of transition, and about to meet my baby. And then it’s always with the help of a midwife and what looks like a crochet hook.

“WHAT?! OK. LEAVING NOW. OMG,” Scott panicked. Naturally, he felt like I was about to have a baby in a parking lot without him.

I assured him that he had plenty of time. Then I begged him to please calm down and not forget all my bags, and my camera, and my charger, and my nursing pillow. And snacks!

When I got to L&D for monitoring, I mentioned that I thought my water broke. I got the “well, we’ll test it to be sure” talk, but once the nurse saw how much I was leaking, there was no need. It was pretty obvious, and they got moving on admitting me. She checked me, and I was at a 3-4. No real change from the hour before at my appointment. I wasn’t having strong contractions at that point, nor did they seem regular, and I was thinking I was about to have a really long night. There was some talk that they would want to start Pitocin if I didn’t show any progress by the next morning.

That screwed with me more than I was expecting. Pitocin? I couldn’t do Pitocin with no epidural. What if I stalled? What if my water breaking meant nothing? What if contractions with a broken bag of water were more painful? What if I couldn’t handle it this time?

This is a good time to talk a little about my mental state heading into labor this round. I fought the entire pregnancy to feel empowered and confident, but something in me just couldn’t embrace that I could do this one more time. I was dreading labor from the minute I found out I was pregnant, and it never got better. My anxiety began to escalate in October, and to be completely honest election season wrecked me and sent me into a tailspin.

The separated ribs that made it hard to breathe certainly didn’t help things, nor did the 3 trips to L&D/the ER prior to figuring out that my ribs were separated, and that was the source of my pain and inability to breathe. I was physically done. I was mentally done. I felt defeated before labor even started.

“Why do I always forget how miserable I am after having a baby?” I asked Scott with tears in my eyes.

It was a rhetorical question. I mean, obviously your mind erases memories of that hot hell to protect the human species. It’s nature.

If I could vividly recall what it’s like to experience sleep deprivation, engorged breasts, raw nipples, night sweats, a patched up vagina, and this…

I would have never had a 2nd or 3rd child.

That is a horrific postpartum rash. I get it every. single. time. I have a baby. And each time it starts all up in my crotch and spreads further down my legs, up onto my stomach, and even onto my arms.

After Kendall, it was suspected I had contact dermatitis from Always pads, and that’s probably true. I likely had that all up in that area where the pads actually came in contact with my skin. Looking back, though, I think I also had a small reaction to the narcotics I was prescribed as pain relief (following an un-medicated birth). I had no idea I was allergic to them at that time.

After Leyna, that narcotic reaction got a little worse, but cleared up with a steroid pack. Still, I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together that it was the pain meds causing this.

After Lowell, for the first time ever, I took a prescription for narcotic pain meds home with me because I have 2 other kids to keep up with now. (I just took high doses of Advil once I got home after Kendall and Leyna were born.) So this mystery rash came, spread, tortured me, and persisted even after I finished a steroid pack (because I was following those pills up with my pain meds).

Once we finally figured out the cause, I immediately stopped taking them, and the rash cleared up within a few days.

Imagine, if you will, your crotch is being held together by stitches, that entire area is so sore and swollen you have to use a gentle stream of water to clean yourself after using the bathroom, and all you want to do is SCRATCH THE ITCH AWAY, except no, because who wants to even look down there after having a baby, let alone scratch. And every time you take a hot shower, which you crave because your muscles are so sore, the hives get worse. The itch is so intense you cry and writhe around just to keep yourself from scratching it because even if you can get past the thought of accidentally scratching off a stitch down there, scratching just makes it WORSE.

Oh, this is so much of my hell after I have babies.

When I was about 4 days postpartum, my curiosity got the best of me, and I looked at myself in the mirror below the waist. My rule after having babies is usually to NEVER LOOK DOWN. For a long, long time. But this time, I really wanted to know what was happening with that cystical. (A cyst on my labia the size of a golf ball that showed up while I was pregnant because the universe is hilarious.)

What I saw… oh my God… what I saw was a scene from a horror movie. I looked deformed. I thought for sure I would never go back to normal. I sobbed in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

8 weeks later, I’m happy to report things are looking much less like they’re about to explode down there. I should have stuck to my original plan to NEVER LOOK DOWN for a long, long time.

In addition to all the physical BLECH that goes on after having a baby, for me, I have those pesky hormones to deal with.

I love all my children so so much. Promise. But when I come home from the hospital with a tiny, fresh baby, I just can not with the older kids crawling on me and touching me, smearing me with their germs.

Of course, outwardly I am loving and excited to see them. I tell them how much I missed them and hug and kiss them. I’m not a monster on the outside, y’all.

Just on the inside.

Just inside my brain, where I’m like, “Oh good God, go to bed. Please leave me and your innocent new sibling alone in our quiet, dark room. No, you can not touch him or kiss him or even LOOK at him while he is slowly demolishing my nipples and killing me quietly. GO. AWAY.”

Nipple pain is real, and can make me blind with rage in the beginning.

Breastfeeding can hurt. Bad. Is it supposed to? Technically, if you have a “perfect” latch, no. Reality? You might not start out with a perfect latch. Should you strive for that? Yes. Should you get help from an LC as soon as possible? Yes. Is it likely you will have someone help you perfect that perfect latch in the first 24-48 hours before any damage is done? In my experience, no.

Nipple pain DOES go away. You CAN make it through. The quicker you work to get a good latch, the faster it will get better. I say these things not to discourage anyone from breastfeeding. I say these things because not many people do, and it helps to be prepared so you can work through it and stick with it, knowing it will get better.

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All of this isn’t to scare anyone or make anyone feel bad for me. This is just the reality that so many gloss over, forget to mention, or just plain forget when it comes to life after baby arrives. Those last few weeks leading up to having a baby are usually mega uncomfortable. This plus labor seems to get all the focus when it comes to talking to expecting moms about how to cope.

Oh sure, there is some talk of preparing freezer meals and arranging for help post-baby. But, in my opinion, this is a transition period in a woman’s life that is grossly neglected. I can see why, honestly.

It’s hard to recall the exact pain of labor and delivery, but there is enough of a dialogue about that to remind moms most of the time that just because we can’t physically remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It also seems more socially acceptable for a woman to experience pain and to reach out for help during this time.

8 weeks out from having a baby, and it really is hard to recall exactly how awful those first few weeks postpartum were, and nobody is talking much about it. People don’t seem to want to hear how a mother of a 2 week old is absolutely miserable and not at all “enjoying this time.” It’s not so acceptable for a mother of a newborn to tell people to please hold off on visiting because she’s in misery and would rather sit on a pack of ice with her shirt off all day.

We don’t blog or tell recovery stories like we do birth stories. By the time most of us come out of the haze of recovery enough to talk to others about it, we either don’t want to re-live it, or we are too drunk on fresh-new-baby smell to recall the details. (Nature has powerful amnesia drugs.)

I asked my Facebook page if I was alone in feeling unprepared for postpartum recovery each time. Turns out, I’m not. Hundreds chimed in, and most agreed that postpartum recovery can really knock us on our ass unexpectedly.

Some people report that their postpartum experiences went great. They were back to life as normal within days. I’m not saying you’re guaranteed to have a brutal recovery, but be prepared for the possibility. Give yourself a lot of time, a lot of grace, and have a plan. Don’t be afraid to tell people no. No, you’re just not ready to come out and meet them yet. No, they can not come visit yet.

Take your time. It takes more than a few days, for most people, to return to a shade of “normal” after having a baby. And that’s okay. You’ll forget it eventually (mostly), but that doesn’t make living through the discomfort in that moment any better.

I’d been pregnant for about… 7ish years. In my head. Technically, I was 40 weeks, 5 days, but in my head? A full seven years.

My body was revolting against me. I had a testicle/cyst growing larger each day (oh, you really should read all about that), and at my 40 week + 4 day appointment, my midwife had to utter the word “induction” to prepare me for the possibility that it might be the only way to stop me from being pregnant for ETERNITY.

(Please do stop yourself if you’re about to comment about how nobody is pregnant forever, babies pick their birth dates, blah blah. Rational arguments were lost on me at that time. That’s what I’m saying.)

The next morning, July 30th at 7:30am, I woke up to a small gush of something down there. My first thought as I shook off the fog in my brain was, “Oh, hell yes. Please let this be it.” Followed very quickly by the following train of thought:

“Oh. Shit. Get off the bed, get off the bed, VERY CAREFULLY GET OFF THE BED. Back your ass out of this thing. Scoot backwards. Don’t roll over. Oh, holy crap. Please don’t be my water breaking, please don’t be my water breaking.”

See, we recently purchased the bed of my dreams. A very expensive bed of my dreams. One made of foam that I imagine is pretty absorbent. One that we did not have any sort of plastic barrier on because my water NEVER breaks on it’s own.

And that’s a good thing, my midwife told me the day before, because I had SO MUCH amniotic fluid this time and the baby was floating so high up in it that IF my water did break, we might have a serious situation on our hands. A situation that would definitely require an immediate drive to the hospital, and possibly an ambulance ride if I felt “anything slipping out down there, like an umbilical cord… or an arm.”

After getting to the bathroom without dropping a water balloon out of my vagina on the way there (or an arm), I determined it was probably my mucus plug I felt, not my water. PHEW. And EW. There was spotting, and then a contraction.

The contraction was nothing to get excited about. I’d been having them for about 6 weeks. But the other signs were making me a little giddy. Scott was working from home that day, so I told him he might need to let his boss know he needed the day off (and the next month- three cheers for a month of vacation days saved up!). After about an hour, I called my midwife’s office. Contractions were pretty irregular and not painful at all. Sometimes I’d go 15 minutes without one. I didn’t expect things to happen anytime soon, but the office wanted me to head to the hospital anyway.

We live 45 minutes from it, and I knew that I was capable of going from 0-60 very fast, based on my 1.5-2 hour labor with Leyna. So we calmly packed up the car and left about an hour and a half after that. Then we stopped to get something to eat. It was all very casual. I’m sure the good people at Panera had no idea I would walk out with a bagel and cream cheese, then push a baby out by the end of the day.

Last bump selfie, just before heading to the hospital. Who’s happy to get this baby out? THIS GIRL.

The contractions were such a joke that by the time we got to the hospital, I was expecting them to just send me home. Nope. I was at a 4/5. (I was barely a 2 the day before.) Problem was the baby was still very high, not at all engaged. I was admitted anyway because everyone was confident I was in active labor, but I was preparing for a long day and night. Scott and I took off for a walk, which seemed to make the contractions stop. When we got back, I was monitored for a bit, then I opted to take a little nap. I was suddenly very tired.

The whole time I rested, I didn’t feel a single contraction. Not for the entire 40 minutes. But my anxiety started to ramp up as I started to feel really hot, and like I couldn’t breathe. I was dizzy. It made me freak out. OMG, did I have a blood clot? WAS I GOING TO DIE? Maybe my testicle-cyst was trying to kill me!

Seriously, the anxiety was a bitch. I begged Scott to get the nurse. I explained to her that I was afraid something was very wrong with me. She asked if I’d felt any contractions. In my head, I was all:

“Contractions? Let’s forget about the labor thing for a minute and focus on how I’m ABOUT TO DIE because CLEARLY something is not right.”

But she insisted on checking me. Hilarity! I hadn’t had contractions in more than an hour.

I was at a 6, almost 7. Baby was definitely engaged, much lower, I was 60% effaced. So a good portion of this labor progressed with the help of a panic attack instead of contractions. Lucky me?

Mostly confident that I was actually NOT dying (at that point), I decided to get in the labor tub. I was suddenly really worried that things were going to go super fast. I texted my birth photographer- Monica of A Sacred Project– and asked her to head on up to the hospital. Then I just… hung out. Just all chill in the warm water, casually kicking back. I felt contractions every 5ish minutes, but they didn’t hurt. I was laughing and talking through them. I was that woman in labor that people probably hate.

Don’t worry. I paid for it later.

Anyway, Monica got there about an hour after I got in the tub, so this is the point in the story where I’ll start to provide her lovely visuals for you all. And by “lovely” I do mean that some are terrifying. (But NONE are of anything below the bump or NSFW.)

(This post is going to be crazy long, so please click through from my homepage to read the rest and see the slideshow at the end of the post!)

It’s hard to know where to start with this one. I mean, with Kendall I knew the moment I went into real labor. I lost my mucous plug, had a contraction shortly after and had a baby in my arms about 21 hours after that.

This time, however, there were a lot of false starts. I had my first round of false labor two weeks before Leyna was born. I began experiencing contractions a few hours after my 39 week appointment, and they lasted throughout the evening only to subside after taking Tylenol PM and going to sleep. I knew those contractions weren’t the real thing because they were too short (30-40 seconds) and coming every 2-3 minutes. They also didn’t radiate all the way around my abdomen, even though I still wouldn’t call them painless. That’s the night my mom decided to drive up… just in case, thus insuring that I actually wouldn’t have a baby for a very, very long time.

The following Tuesday I was still pregnant, but at my 40 wk appt. that morning the midwife determined I was 4 cm dilated and 80% effaced (a big change from the 2 cm and thick cervix the week before). I left that day feeling confident I would have a new baby by Christmas. So confident, in fact, I finally allowed my mom to buy the baby a Christmas outfit… thus solidly sealing my fate that I would not, actually, have a baby by Christmas.

In the wee hours of Christmas morning, one day after my due date, I began having strong, steady, real contractions. I laid in bed and told myself if they were any worse in an hour, I’d wake everyone up and we’d do the Santa thing with Kendall in the middle of the night (because he totally *got* it this year and would be super disappointed to wake and discover not only were mommy and daddy gone, but that bastard Santa skipped his house, too). I had 5 contractions, 7 minutes apart… then nothing. I drifted back to sleep and we enjoyed our last Christmas as a family of three. It was, to tell the truth, quite perfect. I’m glad she chickened out and decided to keep baking through the holiday.

Following Christmas, I decided it was time to get serious and instated “Shop Until I Pop.” We walked the mall, the outlet mall, Target, any place I could think to spend money on random bits and pieces while simultaneously getting a workout that I was hoping would lead to labor. All that amounted from that was a few random bits of clothing, new shoes for Kendall and a dwindling bank account… but still no baby.

My 41 week appointment was the morning of the 28th. I prepared myself to go in there and learn that I was STILL at 4 cm and 80% effaced. I was ready to hear I’d be one of those poor women who walks around at a 4 for 3 weeks only to be induced. In fact, I was actually thinking maybe it was possible I would be closing up by that point. Maybe I’d be only 2 cm again. Maybe the baby was retreating back into my womb. Maybe she heard me go a little crazy over Christmas with all the chaos and stress and decided she’d actually much prefer to stay inside where Psycho Mommy Of Doom couldn’t touch her.

“I don’t even know how you’re still pregnant,” my midwife said to me after an internal exam revealed I was indeed more than 4 cm dilated. I was sitting at a solid 7, pretty much completely effaced.

Mind. Blown.

I had to work SO HARD to get to 7 cm with Kendall. Like, I had a good 19 hours of REAL labor behind me before I got to 7 with Kendall. And then? He was born about an hour after that. So, yeah… internal freaking out commenced. How was I still pregnant?? And more importantly, how much longer could I stay that way??

Pretty much the only thing keeping a baby from shooting out of my vagina at that point was my water bag of STEEL. Once that popped, my midwife warned me things would probably go really, really fast. We live 3o minutes from the hospital, and that’s without traffic.

So when my midwife suggested she strip my membranes to get contractions going, have me go home and get my things and then meet me at the hospital shortly after to break my water, I nearly jumped off the exam table to kiss her. YES! Let’s do this! Because, uhm, I sure as hell am not doing this on the side of the road… or in my car… or in my bedroom… or any place in between.

The contractions that started after she stripped my membranes (for those of you wondering just what the hell that entails, it’s like she crammed her finger all the way up my cervix and ran it between my bag of water and my uterus, and it was as delightful and comfortable as it sounds) were just like the contractions I’d felt the last two Tuesdays after my internal exams, but maybe a tad more regular, a little stronger, maybe a smidge longer. But still, nothing like “real” contractions. I never had to breathe through any of them. I just went about my business, drove home, told Scott to take the rest of the day off work and started leisurely packing for the hospital. We left about an hour later, calmly drove to the hospital.

I’ll say that on the way to the hospital I was mentally preparing myself for what was to come because, for as easy as it was to get to a 7, I was certain I was going to have to work really hard for the last 3 cm. And as much as I wanted to believe it would go fast, I knew there were no guarantees. Scott and I sort of gave each other mini pep talks on the way there. “You can do this, you’ve done this before, DON’T think about how long it’s going to take,” he said.

We checked in at 12:25. The whole experience was pretty surreal. I felt like I was showing up for a scheduled birth. When I arrived at the desk and stated we were there to “have a baby,” the nurse looked at me like, “riiiiighhhht… this is going to take all night.” I was still chatty and 90% comfortable through my contractions the whole 20 minutes they had me on the monitors in the room while Scott worked on blowing up my labor tub and filling it with water.

I went into it thinking a water birth was a possibility, but I didn’t have my heart set on one. Mainly, I just wanted the water to help manage the pain of the contractions since it seemed to work so well with Kendall. My midwife mentioned she would feel more comfortable delivering the baby if I was out of the water so she could see if the baby’s cord was wrapped around her neck, and I told her I wanted to do what she felt was safest. Since I didn’t have any big water birth plans, I told her I’d be fine with getting out of the tub to push, but followed it with the disclaimer that I couldn’t promise I would be happy and that I wouldn’t be dropping f-bombs when the time came. She seemed okay with that compromise.

I believe my midwife broke my water and released the Niagara Falls of amniotic fluid around 1:15. Like, seriously, WHOA. That was a LOT of water. If that had popped in a public place, I think I might have caused a mini tsunami. Clean up on aisle 8 would have required a lot more than a mop and a stock boy.

They monitored me for a few more minutes and then released me to head to the labor tub. I made a pit stop at the potty to pee since the minute my water broke the baby slid down my birth canal and planted herself firmly on my bladder. I peed, and peed, and then I couldn’t tell when I stopped peeing and just sat there for a few minutes wondering if what was coming out of me was still pee or amniotic fluid. I figured I’d probably broken the record for world’s longest pee at that point and should just go ahead and leak my way over to the labor tub. I remember looking up at the clock as I settled in. It was 1:30.

I spent about 10 minutes just chillin in my warm tub of water, chatting it up with my nurse, midwife and Scott. It was quite leisurely. The contractions were getting stronger, and I had to breathe through them, but at the beginning it really wasn’t bad. That all started to change really quickly, though.

Soon enough, the contractions got angry. It scared me a little how fast that happened. I could feel them in my legs, like on the top of my quads, which made the laid back position I’d taken in the tub not so comfy since I couldn’t stretch out completely. As each contraction approached, I cued everyone in the room in and we all got silent. Scott grabbed a bucket of ice and made some ice water to pat on my forehead with a wash cloth. The water in the tub seemed to increase in temperature with each contraction. Soon I was needing to change positions.. but I was scared! I knew I wasn’t loving the position I was in, but what if I moved and found out that position was worse? I glanced at the clock again. It was 2:00.

And while all this was happening, the back and forth in my mind, the increasingly awful contractions, I began to question myself.

“You’re beginning to remember what it was really like, huh?” my midwife remarked.

Hell yeah, I was. Holy shit. I thought I remembered the pain, y’all. I actually feared I remembered it too much prior to going into labor, but THIS was not what I remembered… at least not until I was in the thick of it. THEN I *really* remembered. THEN those sensations that I buried deep within my cerebral cortex came back to me.

And it really scared me. And I asked Scott why I did this again. Why would I ever put myself through this again? Why would he let me? Asshole.

I didn’t think I could handle it, which was exactly how I felt during transition last time, but I had only been in active labor for 45 minutes at that point (active being when the contractions started to ramp up and get painful after my water was broken). This was way too soon to be in trasition already. Transition meant I would be pushing soon, and there was no way I’d be ready to push soon.

And so the mind fuck between the two sides in my head began.

“You can’t do this. It’s too much this time. You’re not even in transition. JUST WAIT until transition. Oh, you are so fucked. You should have done your relaxation exercises.. and your kegels.. and your pelvic rocks!”

“Shut the fuck up. You are FINE. You know why? Because THIS IS transition. Why? Because you think you can’t do it.”

“No. You just really CAN’T do it this time. This isn’t transition. You’ve only been in labor for 45 minute. How on earth could THIS already be transition. And remember pushing? Pushing is going to suck SO hard. SO. HARD.”

“OMG, you’re so right. I forgot about pushing. I DON’T WANT TO PUSH.”

While all this was going on, my midwife suggested I get up and lean over the side of the tub. I hesitated, but knew something had to change, and the only thing that *could* change was my position. I hung my head over the side of the tub and inhaled the fumes of the plastic while my face stuck to it. It started to make me sick… and I was increasingly warm. I knew I wouldn’t last like this long.

I began to feel a lot of pressure down low, but, to be honest, I really thought I was about to poop. I hadn’t had a chance to clean my system out that day. With Kendall, I got all that out of my system before we went to the hospital, but since I didn’t really experience labor up until my water breaking I knew I had plenty in there to dispel still. So… it was looking like we were going to need to use that fishnet we brought. Glorious.

At that moment, like my midwife was reading my mind, or I don’t know… maybe I farted? Maybe she smelled it? Maybe she saw bubbles? She gently suggested maybe, if I was feeling like the tub was too hot, I go ahead and get out and get on the bed, but first, why don’t I go sit on the toilet to see if I need to poop at all. I was, honestly, so relieved she suggested it so I didn’t have to announce to the whole room, “Hey, I think I might take a giant shit here in this tub. Someone please fetch the fish net.”

And so, because I was at the point in labor where one has completely lost every shred of modesty and dignity, I grabbed my husband’s arm and had him escort me to the toilet. For a split second I thought, perhaps, they would close the door and let me do my thing in private. Of course, I was wrong. So there I sat on the toilet, midwife, nurse and husband sitting around me, and I pooped. A big poop. I’m pretty sure it was a smelly poop.

I, the girl who rarely ever even farts in front of her husband (and this actually caused me much anxiety during my first pregnancy), took a giant shit on the toilet while the love of her life held her hand and looked on… and then he offered to wipe for me. Which I guess is a really loving gesture, but totally not one I was willing to take him up on. So, I guess I still had a teensy, tiny, Easter-grass-sized shred of dignity left.

And then something happened after I took this giant, smelly shit in the toilet… which still floated in there, yet to be flushed.

I felt the uncontrollable, unstoppable urge to push. And so I did. I pushed while sitting on top of the toilet filled with poop, like “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” style, like “I Delivered My Baby At Prom” style. And for a brief moment I looked over at my germaphobe husband and could see a look of terror flash through his eyes. OMG, was I about to have this baby in a toilet bowl full of shit?!

As soon as that horrific contraction passed, my nurse and midwife moved swiftly to move me to the bed. “Let’s have this baby!” they exclaimed.

Huh? What? Really? Already? I’M NOT READY TO PUSH!

But clearly, I was. I had no control over it. So I knew I had to move fast, lest I actually do have my baby in a toilet full of shit.

And so, at what I can best estimate was around 2:25-2:30, I got up on to the bed (not fully reclined on my back, more in a sitting up, reverse squat position). And I actually managed to not push for one mini contraction. I breathed through it and told everyone I wasn’t ready yet. I knew the pain was far from over, and I was scared.

But I gave myself a mini pep talk in my head. The only way out of this was through this. The only way to make the pain stop was to give in to the pain and get it over with. It was time to get down to business. It was time to have a baby.

As I felt the next contraction approach, I let everyone know I was ready. It took over me, I made scary noises, guttural noises, noises that didn’t even sound like they were coming from me. I pushed. And I pushed. And I pushed. And HOLYFUCKINGSHIT it hurt. According to my pep-squad, I was doing really well. They promised me she was “right there.”

I don’t know if I just don’t remember very clearly, but I want to say that pushing this time around was much more intense. MUCH more painful. I wanted to die, more than I wanted to while in transition. I pushed for 20 minutes with Kendall. I knew I wouldn’t last that long this time around. There was no way. This baby had to come out. NOW.

The next contraction was the longest I’ve ever experienced. Maybe not if clocked in actual real time. Maybe it was only a minute on a stop watch. But in my space-time continuom, at that moment, it lasted an hour. And I pushed the entire time. And the dialogue in my head went something like this:

“OMG,OMG,OMG YOU. ARE. GOING. TO. DIE. What is that sensation? I think you are ripping completely in half. I think your clitoris is about to pop off. You are going to have ONE HOLE down there when this is all over. GET IT OUT. GET IT OUT. GET IT OUT. BREATHE. BREATHE. BREATHE. Ring of fire. Ring of fire. RING OF FIRE IS LASTING FOREVER. GET IT OUT OF THE RING OF FIRE!!”

With one final mini push of that big, long, worst minute of my life contraction, her head came out. I was completely oblivious at the time, but apparently her cord was wound around her neck and she was blue. Scott said the midwife was quick as a flash and had it off of her in seconds. Then she told me I needed to push the shoulders out.

I STILL HAVE TO PUSH OUT MORE?! Is what my face was saying. Although my actual voice was just saying, “UGHHNNNGHHHRAWWWRRR”… I think.

I still felt like I had a mountain to climb. I was so lost in the moment that I didn’t realize once I pushed those shoulders out, I was done. I would have a baby. This would be over. I just braced myself and gave it all I had.

And just like that, she was here. My nurse told me to open my eyes, and at that moment they plopped her on my chest. Yes, all slimy and covered in goo. I didn’t care. She was out. She was… perfect, and we named her Leyna Lorelei Krause.

I recall thinking she was so squishy. I couldn’t see her face very well at first, but her body was ripe with chubby rolls. NO wonder it felt like giving birth to a jack-o-lantern. She was quite the round pumpkin. I barked at Scott to get the camera.

And suddenly it was all worth it. She was alert, she was healthy, the pain had passed (well, relatively speaking), and I knew I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way (except maybe I’d leave out the pooping in front of everyone part if I could do it all over). Time of birth- 2:38, about 2 hours after we checked into the hospital. About 1.5 hours after my midwife broke my water and my “active” labor started. It was a super intense, really painful 1.5 hours, but I’ll take it!

The damage? Oh, I was so convinced they were going to need to take me in for surgery to repair the carnage down there. Wouldn’t you know, though, that 9 lb 9 oz little girl, who I thought ripped me in half, only gave me one tiny 1st degree tear. According to my midwife, my pushes were “very controlled,” which is odd because I felt anything but controlled in the moment, but go body for knowing what to do, I guess.

Early on in this pregnancy, I worried quite a bit about where I should deliver and who I should deliver with. I was apprehensive about delivering at a hospital, but knew a birth center or home birth just wasn’t the right choice for me. I did my best to find a midwife who I felt would work with me to achieve a healthy, med-free birth (leaving the OB I started with at 20 weeks), and I wound up delivering at Baylor, Dallas. Let me tell you all, I could not be happier. I thought my hospital/midwife experience with Kendall was so great that surely I wouldn’t be so lucky to replicate it. I was wrong. I think my experience with my midwife and delivering at Baylor was actually even better.

I felt so supported 100% of the way. Not a single nurse balked at my med-free plan, never the word epidural was mentioned. The breastfeeding support after having Leyna was phenomenal. I was visited by 3 lactation consultants in a 24 hour period… just to see how things were going. It really renewed some of my faith in the system. You CAN have a healthy, med-free birth in a hospital, but you really have to do your research and work hard to find a provider and a hospital that you are 120% confident will support you. And you need to prepare. You have to educate yourself.

Despite how much I thought I’d want to stay in the hospital forever and ever before returning to the chaos of real life with a toddler, we left after only 24 hours. Why? Well, for one, I couldn’t get a damn wink of sleep there. And? I missed my little boy. A lot.

You might think this is the end of the story, but just like last time, there’s a lot left to tell still. Stay tuned for “the rest of the story, take 2.”

“You say that…” my running partner and I both respond together, and then smile at each other.

Others in the pace group start to chime in, “You’ll forget all about the pain… you’re going to look back and only remember the good things… it’s going to be so amazing when you cross the finish line… you’ll run another one… just wait.”

I laugh a little to myself. It really IS so much like having a baby, med-free.

During labor and delivery with Kendall, I couldn’t help but constantly compare my mental state of mind and the level of pain I was experiencing with what it felt like to run and finish my first marathon two and a half years earlier. It was, in fact, the most painful, most mentally and physically challenging thing I’d ever been through up to that point. It was the biggest motivator for me, facing down the wretched,razor lined, semi-truck through the spine gremlin, a.k.a. giving birth to an 8.11 lb anterior facing baby with no epidural. “If I can run a marathon, I can do this,” I repeated to myself over and over.

As I ran my second marathon yesterday (around Dallas’ White Rock Lake), I kept myself slightly amused, entertained and intrigued by turning the tables and comparing the strength it took to get through a med-free delivery to surviving another 26.2 mile race. “I can do this. I had a baby with no epidural,” I reminded myself often.

(Miles 1-7/signs of early labor)

In the beginning, you’re a ball of nerves. Do I eat? Do I not eat? What do I eat? Will I throw it up? You’re planning in your head. You’re very concerned about potty breaks and getting everything out. Making lists, checking off milestones, very conscious of your body. What was that? Why does that hurt? I hope that goes away. You haven’t settled into your pace. You’re jittery. You’re mind is everywhere. You smile. A lot. You’re so excited about the journey you just started. You may even break out the camera and take pictures. You have the energy for such things right now. You even look good. You have an outfit on that matches because you think that matters right now.

(Miles 8-15/still cooling it at home)

Then you start to find your groove. Things loosen up. Your breathing becomes steady, but you’re not really having to focus on it yet. You are very interested in what your watch tells you. You’re cross referencing it’s readout with where you should be at nearly every step. You’re feeling good. Really good. Sure, it’s a little painful, but the optimism is shining through.

(Miles 16- 19/ starting to think a trip to L&D or a visit from the midwife is in your near future)

You get a little further along and things start to ache a little more. Those twinges and tweaks become sharp aches and cramps. You have to get serious now. You have to focus. You’re lighthearted conversations die out. You are mostly silent. You are paying a lot more attention to your breathing. You’re also starting to wonder what you signed yourself up for, but you don’t even allow yourself to think that you might not be able to finish what you started. You know that’s a very risky mental path of self doubt to go down.

(Miles 20-22/This. Is. Serious.)

The pain is bad. It’s really bad. You are hurting in places you’d never even given thought to before. You’re trying so hard to stay positive. The people around you make all the difference. The way they can read you and cheer you on pushes you through. You really crave oranges right now. Oranges are amazing. You’re making weird noises and you don’t care who hears you. You want to believe that you can do this, but if ONE MORE person tells you you’re “ALMOST THERE!” you just might kick their ass. This is the hardest you’ve ever worked in your life, and you know it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You also cuss. A lot. You probably offend some people. You don’t give a shit. Every thing becomes a blur and your sense of time is completely warped.

(Miles 23-25/This is TRANSITION)

WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING???!!! NO REALLY, WHAT THE FUCK??? Repeat x 1,000. You can’t get emotional because then you can’t breathe and breathing is SO IMPORTANT right now. As people on the outside try to motivate you, you may think, “Please, people, stop making me want to cry with all your inspirational bullshit because I really need to FUCKING BREATHE.” And then you just get mad. You’re just a mad person, and you think people are lying to you. You think they are just telling you things like, “it’s almost over” just to get you to keep going on this never ending ride through hell forever and ever. You hate them. You tell them that, even if just under your very labored breath. YOU ARE NEVER DOING THIS EVER AGAIN!!

(Miles 25-26.2- PUSH)

Quite frankly, you don’t care what comes out of you right now. You might shit yourself, and you’re okay with that. You will not look good for pictures. You are so DONE with all this. DONE. Screw listening to your body. You don’t care what you rip or tear in the process, you want to be finished, and you’re going to push yourself so far beyond your limits until you get there. You know the only way to feel better, to rest, to stop, is to push because stopping before the finish is not an option.

People are cheering you on. It’s fueling you. You finally allow yourself to think just how amazing it will be when that award is in your hands. You want it so badly. You find every last ounce of energy in your body and you give it all you’ve got. You feel a wave of excitement pass over you and you just go with it. You don’t remember exactly how you get there, but you finish. And then you collapse… and then you cry. It’s an ugly cry, but it’s a beautiful moment. And they put it in your hands… and you are so amazed… so proud… and it was all worth it.

BUT that still doesn’t mean you are EVER DOING THIS AGAIN. You would give just about anything for an epidural now that it’s over.

You will feel like you were steamrolled for a while. You won’t dare think of doing this again for quite some time. You will be happy enough with your first and only experience.

And then, one day in the distant future, you will look at what you worked so hard for, you will remember the pride, the joy, the amazing reward. You will think to yourself, “Well, maybe just one more…”

Kendall is nearly 19 and a half months old, and he thinks our finisher medals are pretty awesome.

As bad as labor and delivery hurt, I felt prepared for the pain. I had spent months teaching myself how to cope with it with various techniques. I was mentally prepared for what was going to happen to my body leading up to Kendall’s grand exit. And it was pain with a purpose and a wonderful reward. However, I foolishly neglected to prepare myself for the pain of postpartum recovery. It’s not anything I heard anyone really explain in detail prior to having him.

Yes, I knew there would probably be tearing. Yes, I knew I would be sore, but I didn’t KNOW to what extent. I just figured that everything would pale in comparison to the pain of L&D and that I would be up and bouncy and fine in no time. Imagine my surprise when immediately after delivering Kendall I find myself freaking out as I see the world’s largest needle headed straight toward my already battered and bruised vagina to numb me up for the stitches! It was like I went from being the “I just kicked med-free birth in the ass because I’m rock star bad ass” to a “You’re going to stick that where? No! I’m such a wuss!” In a matter of minutes.

So I type this, the *rest* of the story, NOT to scare you (which I’m afraid is what I did with my birth story for so many of you) but to INFORM you. I think it’s important to know what you’re getting into. I also think it’s important to blog this as it’s fresh in my mind so that when I start to suffer from mom-nesia, I can look back and read carefully before deciding to put myself through this again (not that it hasn’t been worth it the first time around). Please keep in mind that I by no means am saying you are going to have the same experience. I don’t know what my pain tolerance is in comparison to yours, and I DID have a big baby. I’m sure that has something to do with it.

Okay, so let’s revisit that needle thing. I had just handed Kendall off to go get weighed, measured, etc. when I look down to discover my midwife coming at me with what looks like a needle big enough to euthanize a cow. Typically, I’m not afraid of needles, but let’s just say I was a little jumpy about ANYTHING touching me down there, especially a needle of that enormity.

I have no idea to what degree I tore or how many stitches I needed. I mean, really…why do I need to know that? All I know is it took them a good thirty minutes to put things back in place, and while I couldn’t feel the needle pierce me, I could feel the sensation of the thread/string/whatever it is they use to stitch you up being pulled through….ick…I totally shudder just thinking about it.

As gross as that was, what scared me the most was hearing my midwife say to the nurse, “Yeah…we’ll have to take our time with the right labia”. O….M….G. She must have done a good job, though, because every nurse who came in as I laid there spread eagle commented on how good things looked down there. I also got several compliments from the recovery team. I’m so glad everyone got so up close and personal with me.

Then there was the second big ass needle that came at me in the middle of being stitched up. This one was for the Pitocin. I guess my uterus wasn’t contracting enough on it’s own and I was starting to loose a lot of blood. They tried the uterus “massage” a few times, which is such a misleading term. Massage would, to me, imply something gentle, soothing even. Not this one. This should be more appropriately termed the uterus “smack down”. Two nurses took turns kneading my lower abdomen like a lump of bread dough. There was nothing gentle about it. When that didn’t produce the results they were looking for, I got jabbed in the thigh with the Pitocin. I have to give my husband some more credit here because as all this was going on, he left Kendall (only feet away) to come and hold my hand. We both had him in clear sight, and in fact he was what I looked at to keep my focus off the pain, but it helped tremendously to have Scott there to inflict just a little of my misery on via hand squeeze.

About an hour after birth, the room started to clear out. I was informed it was now time for me to get up and head to the bathroom. This was a terrifying challenge. My fabulous nurse Karen assisted me into the room with the magic tub that had once brought me such comfort. She sits me on the toilet and asks if I have to pee. Uhmmm…no. Nothing is coming out of me down there for a long time. She then informs me I have 6 hours to make myself urinate or I will have to get a catheter and says, “You girls who go without any meds…I don’t want to be the one to put a catheter in ya… it’s not pretty. So you gotta drink lots of fluids, okay?” Okay. Will do. And I drink probably two bottles of Gatorade in the next six hours, along with a bottle of water.

Then nurse Karen pulls out a giant bag full of all sorts of lovely medical supplies. She begins to make a super pad concoction for me. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t eaten in 9 hours, or the $5 Subway Footlong jingle that’s stuck in my head, but I can’t help but think how much this pad and all it’s “fixins” resembles a sub sandwich. It’s a footlong pad, topped with a cold pack, lined with round witch hazel “pepperoni” pads, and “dressed” with a good coating of Dermaplast. I will forever think of them now as Heiney Hoagies, and I will think of them fondly. The combo of the cold pack mixed with the witch hazel pads is heavenly, despite the fact that you are waddling around with a footlong sub stuffed between your legs.

At this time I was also introduced to the wonderful Peri Bottle. It’s merely a squeeze bottle that you fill with warm water, but it will become your best friend. Not only does it help clean you up down there without having to subject yourself to harsh and scratchy TP, but that warm stream also provides a lot of relief, especially when you pee on your stitches (ouch!).

Now, I must interject a PSA at this point because, as I type this, I am dealing with the fallout from too much Peri Bottle and not enough TP. Here’s the thing – as much as you don’t want ANYTHING touching you down there for a long time, please suck it up and make sure you pat yourself dry every time before slipping on your lovely Heiney Hoagie. I have spent the last two weeks in pads and made the mistake of rarely using TP to pat things dry. I just washed off with the bottle and pulled up my mesh panties (another fabulous medical invention). I now sit here with what can only be called an adult diaper rash. It’s terribly itchy and the only thing I can do is air myself out, spray Dermaplast all over it, and smear Kendall’s diaper rash cream on. Yes, I know that if I would have given it just a little bit of thought it would seem common sense that sitting in a moist pad for two weeks would lead to this, but I’m telling you you aren’t thinking that far in advance when all you can focus on is how bad the stitches hurt.

So that leads me to the stitches…. ow, ow, owie, ow, OUCH! First lesson to pound into your mind – do NOT try to cross your legs! I made this mistake when we were taking our family pic together before leaving the hospital. It was second nature to me to sit that way, and as soon as I did I regretted it.

Second lesson – do NOT look down! The day after delivery I dropped my Dermaplast on the bathroom floor while making a Heiney Hoagie and happened to catch a glimpse of the carnage on the way back up. It was merely a glimpse and I was terrified of what I saw. I vowed to not look that way again until I was sure things were healed. I won’t even let myself look that direction in the mirror when I walk past to get in the shower.

Third – take a pillow everywhere with you for at least the first week and avoid hard chairs. I couldn’t even eat at the dining room table without sitting on a pillow and a large folded up comforter. Overcoming the pain from the stitches was the part of the healing that surprised me the most.

At two weeks postpartum, I would say I feel about 90% healed. This time last week, I thought I’d feel, as my husband so kindly put it, like someone beat me with a baseball bat down there forever. In addition to that, my tailbone is STILL healing from what felt like being crushed as I pushed Kendall out. I spend most of my time sitting shifting back and forth from one butt cheek to the other so I can avoid direct pressure on it. It DOES get better. I keep telling myself that.

Finally, the pain that was the worst (and I mean worse than labor and delivery itself) was the catheter I ended up getting at 6:30 am the day I delivered. After Karen made me promise to drink lots of liquids, I hydrated myself constantly, convinced that I would have no problem peeing in the 6 hour time frame. Well, by the time 6 am rolled around, I had to pee sooooooo freaking bad, and yet was so scared to do it at the same time, that I had to have Scott come with me to the bathroom to hold my hand.

We both sat there, door wide open, nurse coming in and out, as I tried and tried to pee (as you can see, modesty is completely out the window at this point…forget any mystery that is left between you and your husband…it is gone forever). The nurse tried everything from spraying me with warm water, to turning the water faucet on, to dropping an ammonia tablet in the toilet (I have no idea how that is supposed to help). Nothing worked, and yet I felt like I was going to pop.

I reluctantly agreed to the catheter. It. was. TERRIBLE. Scott was there again to hold my hand (his must have been terribly bruised by this point). I had two nurses try unsuccessfully to get it in before angel nurse Karen finally came to the rescue. Remember the “right labia” comment? Yeah…those stitches were dangerously close to my urethra. That made the whole thing 100x worse. The ordeal lasted about 30 minutes and I sobbed through the whole thing. I think Scott thought I was dying. Seeing me in pain in labor and delivery never bothered him because we both knew how to handle it…we were prepared and knew it would be over soon. However, seeing me like this was a whole other ball game, and I could tell it was killing him. When they finally got the catheter in they managed to drain a LITER of fluids from me. Looks like I did a good job re-hydrating myself!

So, are you scared out of your mind yet? I’m sorry. Let me just say this. Even after writing and re-living all of this, I would do it all over again 100,000 times the same exact way if if meant having the same outcome. Kendall is amazing. I love him more than I ever thought possible. He was/is worth all the pain. Because here’s the thing about having a baby…. no matter how you go about it, it’s never going to be pain free. Epi or not, c-section or vaginal… it’s going to hurt, but you usually come to terms with that by the end of 9 months, and you don’t care. You do it for the reward. And as whiny as this post may have come across, I didn’t write it merely to complain. I wrote it to show you how much you can go through and still come out saying, “Man…that was really hard, but it was worth it”.

Well, here it is. My LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGG birth story. I figured I need to do it right, get as many details down as possible before I forget. So please forgive me if it seems long winded (seems…hell, it is), but I am trying to preserve whatever memories I can before the baby sucks them all out of my head.

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I seriously never thought it would be this hard to find a little free time with a newborn. The eat like all the FREAKING time, and then they poop, and then they get gassy or fussy, and then they spit up on their little cute clothes, and then you have to do laundry, and then you have to find time to pee, and then they have to EAT AGAIN!!! It’s 3 in the morning. I told myself I could not go to bed tonight until this was done. I’m exhausted. Enjoy.

May 1st, 4:40 am – Wake up for the second time in 4 hours to pee…stumble to bathroom. Replace empty toilet paper roll…AGAIN. Ugh. Wipe, check TP (because this is now second nature)…spotting….SPOTTING!! YESSSSSSS! Head to bed like a giddy school girl. This is good. This has to be a sign of labor soon! Lay down at 4:45 and feel first contraction. Try not to get excited, Jill.

5:10 am – felt at least 6 contractions by now. I decide to call Scott at work. “Hon…I think I’m in labor. I’m going to take a shower and see if they stop. I’ll call back later.” Shower….shave. Yes, I shaved. Who knows when I’ll have time to do this again? Contractions are still coming every 5-6 minutes. Not terribly painful, but not comfortable. These are definitely NOT Braxton Hicks. I’m now noticing my mucus plug. Yay! My vagina finally sneezed! All signs are pointing to meeting my baby soon.

5:45 am – Scott is home from work. We’re excited, but both trying hard not to show it. It’s like we’re afraid we’ll scare the contractions away. My mom and Hailey (our niece we have temporary custody of) are still asleep in the other room. We start getting the bags ready for the car. I’m already starting my relaxation exercises and sitting on my birthing ball. Mom eventually wakes up and helps with the last minute packing. We call friends to come get Hailey. I’m very caught up in all the details right now. Do we have everything? The car is packed by 6:30. I’m imagining we will be in it by the time lunch rolls around. I’m so wrong.

7 am- Scott heads to bed for some rest before the big show. Mom and I watch Juno. It’s a cute movie, that Juno, but I thought it would be better. Hailey is awake by 7:30. I’m laying on the couch and contractions are still very manageable. So much so that I don’t think Hailey had any idea what was going on other than that she was about to go to a very long sleepover with her friend, Bhavika. Amy shows up shortly after to pick her up. We try to explain that there will be a new “cousin brother” when she comes back home. Yeah… I don’t think she really cares. She’s pumped about the sleepover and almost forgets to tell us goodbye. Ahh…relief that she’s gone. Not that I don’t love her, but I don’t want to labor with a nearly 4 year old running around in my high heels, begging us to “go to the ball” with her.

9 am – I head to bed. Contractions are still 5-6 minutes apart and a little painful. I figure I should get some sleep. Scott is in there and we wake up together for every contraction. He starts his job as coach at this point, rubbing my back through each contraction and timing them. We both have no problem passing out in between contractions, but it does make for very disrupted sleep.

11 am- I start to notice they are getting a lot more painful, and Scott decides to run me a bath. I never take a bath in this tub. It’s vile. Our apartment is old and I think it’s the original tub. The grout, no matter how hard I scrub, is never mildew free. Scott thinks ahead. He lines the entire perimeter of where the tub meets the tile with clean towels. He disinfects the tub before I get in. Ahh…I love my germaphobe. He also lights candles and dims the lights. It feels great, but it’s so frustrating that I can’t get my boobs and my belly under the water at the same time. After 30 minutes I decide I should get out. It’s made my contractions space farther apart. I want PROGRESS people!

11:30 – back to bed. I stay there, with Scott coaching me, until 3pm.

3 pm- I’m up. Contractions are slowly getting stronger. They are about 4-5 minutes apart now, although we’ve stopped timing them. I hang out with my mom and Scott. We chat between contractions. I notice they are much more painful when I’m sitting down, even on the yoga ball. From this point on, I’m pretty much laboring on my feet. I’m scared to even sit down between contractions because it hurts like hell to stand up during one.

5 pm – We decide to eat some dinner. Baked potatoes with butter and cheese…mmmm. I hope I don’t see this coming back up later. At least it’s bland, I guess. I start to notice the contractions are coming much faster. I remember the website that times your contractions for you, www.contractionmaster.com. Scott is thrilled by it’s geekyness. I now start out every contraction by yelling, “SPACE BAR!”

6:30 pm- We are out the door to the birthing center. I’m trying not to get excited/nervous because I know adrenaline can slow or stop labor. The downside to this is experiencing three contractions in the confines of the passenger seat. Did I mention it hurts like hell to sit through a contraction?

7:00 pm – Arrive at birthing center. Then I have the LONGEST most painful contraction yet as I wait in the hall to get checked in. I’m convinced I must at least be at 5 cm and that I’ll see my baby sometime tonight. By 7:15 I’m strapped to the torture bed for monitoring. Contractions hurt like hell sitting down, but they are absolute MURDER on the bed with me flat on my back.

That’s okay, I tell myself, you’re probably really far along now and that’s why they are hurting so bad. Yeah…the nurse determines otherwise when she finally checks my cervix at 7:45. Turns out I am STILL at 2 cm!!! No progress since my appointment yesterday. Seriously…what the fuck? I cry for the first time today. My nurse, Karen, an angel sent from God, looks me in the eyes and tells me, “No. You can’t do that. You can’t let this get to you. You have to get it together.” I like this girl. She’s not going to coddle me. She’s going to tell me to put on my big girl panties and take it like a woman. Good. I need that.

8:00 pm – Talk to the midwife on the phone. She gives me two options. Go home with some Ambien, get some good sleep, and wake up when I’m in “active labor” (errr…if this isn’t ACTIVE labor, I’m royally screwed) nice and refreshed. Or I could walk the halls of the birthing center for an hour and get rechecked at 9. Even though I am leaning toward the Ambien at this point (my spirits are more than a little crushed….I begin to have visions of 48 hour labor), my mom is wise enough to get Scott to convince me to walk. It is a painful hour with contractions still every 2-3 minutes apart. All I can do is lean on him or the helpful “ballet bar” that lines the hall every time I feel one come.

9:15 pm – I’m back on the torture bed. Preparing for the bad news. The nurse checks me. I’m at 4 cm!!! The nurse and I both are beaming. I’m confident again. I’m ready to kick labor in the ass. I’m a rock star. Now, get me to a birthing suite. I want a bath – ASAP.

(At this point, times are merely an approximation. It starts to become a blur.)

9:30 – I’m in the room. It’s like the contractions know it too. They are much more painful than they were in the hall. The nurse is trying to collect info from me in between. Isn’t this what we pre-registered for? Scott decides to bust out some of the labor “tools” we brought – tennis balls, rice sock, yoga ball. I nearly die when I try to sit on the yoga ball during a contraction and Scott reads my made up sign language that was meant to say, “Let me lean on you” as “Pull me up from this ball in the middle of this contraction”. Holy shit. That. hurt. so. bad. I proceed to beat him after the contraction is over.

He immediately leaves to run me my bath. While waiting for the tub to fill up we try some of the other tools. I was so psyched about how prepared I was before we left for the hospital, but wouldn’t you know, we didn’t use a damn thing once we got there. Tennis balls annoy the shit out of me, the rice sock is too hot. The yoga ball was sent from Satan himself.

9:45 – Finally, the tub is ready. I slip in and immediately feel relief. This is no pansy ass tub. It’s huge and deep and all bumps (boobs and belly) fit under the water at the same time. The lights are out and the battery operated candles we packed are making me feel like I’m at a spa. I’ve lost most of my modesty at this point. I’m naked except for a hand towel that is draped over my chest, mainly just to keep me warm when I am sitting up in the tub.

I chat in between contractions, crack jokes even, with my midwife, nurse, mom and Scott. As each contraction hits, Scott reads me like a book. He’s such an amazing coach. I try my best to relax every muscle in my body and just let myself float. Oh, it still hurts like a bitch, make no mistake about that. I catch myself a couple times in the middle of a contraction thinking, “How can I do this again?” but I stop that train as soon as possible and promise myself to only think about each contraction as they come. That frame of mind helps immensely.

11 ish – Still feeling good between contractions, but that’s only for about one minute before the next one hits. I’m surprised at how fast things seem to be progressing. We definitely have a routine down now. I ride the contractions and make lots of noises which I’m convinced are frightening anyone who may be outside the room. My mom and nurse swear up and down I’m not nearly as loud as I think I am. I think they are lying and pray there are no hospital tours tonight and that I’m not freaking out any innocent expecting moms.

Scott has a great eye and sees every part of me that tenses up. He reminds me very sweetly to relax that part of the body and doesn’t let me hyperventilate or scream through the contractions, which is getting hard not to do. He also fans me with this $2 personal battery operated fan we picked up from the camping section in Target – the one labor “tool” we did use. It was so worth it. Even though my bath water is tepid at best at this point, I am so hot. The fan, ice chips, and a cold rag are a great relief. He also talks to me about how this was just like the marathon (we trained for and ran our first together in 2005, the day he proposed to me). He tells me I am at the 20 mile marker. That it is going to get hard but it was almost over. Perfect mental imagery. It also really makes me want an orange. At mile 20 in the marathon I would have killed for an orange.

11:45 – My midwife tries to check my cervix in the tub. Uncomfortable and awkward to say the least. I can’t blame her. It’s dark. I am contracting almost constantly. It’s a strange angle. But somehow she just can’t….ummmm…find the opening. I know I have to be getting close from all the pressure I am feeling down low and the fact that I have very little time between contractions. She convinces me to leave the safety and comfort of the tub to get on the torture bed to be checked. The only way she gets me to agree is promising I can return to the tub if I’m not far enough to push.

So here I go across the room, naked, dripping, the nurse trying to cover me in sheets. I’m overly confident at this point that I will most definitely be at 9 or 10. Nope. I’m only at 8. My exact words as I leap off the bed – “SON OF A BITCH! I’m going back to the tub NOW!” My midwife and husband catch me just before my feet touch the ground.

They sit me back down and she calmly says, “Wait..wait..just wait. I think if I break your water you will go from 8 to 10 really fast and you will be able to push very soon. Is that what you want?” Is that what I WANT?? Are you kidding me? No. I want to experience this pain as long as possible and wait for the kid to decide at 4 tomorrow morning that he’s going to break my water in a game of darts. “Yes….YES.. do it…just DO IT NOW!” I see the crochet hook headed toward me, but I never feel what I thought I would feel when my water breaks. No gush, no warmth, nothing. I worry for a second that I have a bag of steel that will require extra effort to pop, but I am quickly reassured that the deed was indeed done.

11:50 ish – HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!! Contractions…so strong…on torture bed…on my back…I may just die…right here. So THIS is transition. The rational part of my brain knows this. I know this is the quickest and most painful part of labor. I know that I am so close to pushing. I keep praying to feel that “urge to push” that I hear is just like having to take a giant shit. I mean, everyone always says how great it feels to push…how transition hurts like a bitch, but pushing is such a relief. The rational part of my brain says that I feel this awful because I will be pushing very soon and it will all feel so much better. However, the other part of my brain, the What The Fuck Have You Done part, does not believe the rational part.

Here is a brief excerpt from the conversation between the two sides in my head – “What the hell have you done? This is TERRIBLE!! You are such an IDIOT! You are going to die. You are too far gone for meds now, you moron….. Calm down, this is just transition. It’s good that you feel this way. That means you are close… What the FUCK ever. The only way this kid is coming out of you is if they kill you or cut him out. Way to go. You are NEVER doing this again. NEVER. Tell Scott that… tell him that NOW.”

And I do… many, many times. I tell him he better love this kid a lot because it’s the only one he’s getting. While telling him this I am gripping onto his shoulders like he was the only limb keeping me from falling off a cliff. He momentarily complains of back pain and reaches for the stool at the end of the bed. I come out of my pain induced haze just long enough to give him a look of disbelief and tell him, “No! That’s for the midwife! The woman who is supposed to catch our child!” Karen, the nurse, swiftly finds another seat for him.

12:10 ish – I begin to get that I have to poop feeling. Yayayayayayayay!!! I tell the midwife, just in case it really is me having to poop. She says no, that’s me having to “poop out a baby”. Oooh, goodie! It’s about to start feeling better. I’m so exhausted from transition. I am passing out for the brief seconds I have between contractions. The natural instinct to bear down and push begins to take over. The midwife tells me to give it a try on the next contraction.

Okay…so I just do what I think is pushing…well, crap…this doesn’t feel like it’s working… and HEY!… why is this not “feeling better”??? I tell everyone I have no idea what I’m doing. I begin to get a little freaked out. I remember the story of my best friend who just delivered last month. She pushed for 3 farking hours before ending up with a c-section. I don’t think I will last one hour and I will surely die by three. The next contraction comes, I start to push harder. I think I’m making a little more progress now, but THIS DOES NOT FEEL GOOD! What a load of crap! Everyone who says “Oh, pushing feels so good. It’s such a great feeling to push,” kiss my ass right now. Yes, it feels better than the alternative – keeping that 8 pound bowling ball in your vagina – but it does NOT feel good. It hurts like hell.

Oh great…I’m now peeing all over my midwife. There is definitely a projectile stream coming from me aimed straight at her face. I have no idea if I’ve crapped on the table, although I’m sure I have, but I know for a fact that I just doused her with urine. Scott says aloud, “Is that her water? It smells like pee.” Astute observation, my dear.

By the time the third pushing contraction rolls around I feel like I have the hang of it, and I’ve come to grips with the fact that this is not going to “feel good” until I get this kid the hell out of me. I start pushing like my life depends on it, and then I push even more. Everyone keeps telling me that I’m so close. I think they are lying. I tell them this aloud. I accuse them all of being big fat liars who are just telling me that so that I will keep pushing for the next three hours. I scream. I am reminded not to do this by my nurse and midwife. I’m supposed to “push through the pain”. This is so counter intuitive. I hold my breath and puff out my cheeks. My midwife tells me not to do this…to relax my face or I will end up with broken blood vessels in my eyes and on my face. Well, wouldn’t want that now, would we? I then notice that I have heartburn. Yup folks. In the middle of pushing, I get one last case of pregnancy induced heartburn. “Why do I have heartburn?!” I scream between pushing. My midwife laughs and says, “Well, he’s not out yet.”

Just when I think I can’t do it anymore I do start to feel progress down there. It’s the “ring of fire” everyone talks about. I have to say, it doesn’t hurt that bad. Maybe it’s because pushing was already so dang painful for or because this part of my labor went really fast, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I can feel him crowning and I can feel myself tear a little, but at least that feeling means he is actually exiting my body and relief is in sight. I finally started to believe everyone. I say aloud, “I WILL get him out on the next push. This is IT.”

12:40 ish – My nurse asks if I wanted to see it in the mirror, to which I swiftly reply, “Hell no.” When his head is finally out, I have such an urge to keep pushing to get the rest of him out, but my midwife STRONGLY urges me to stop. I looked at her like she is crazy. “I can’t STOP! Get him out…get him out NOW!!”

Somehow I manage to breathe through it and hold back just long enough for her to get his shoulder out. As soon as she opens her mouth to tell me to push I give it one last shot and all I see is a huge gush of bloody fluid exit me. I do not see the baby at first. In fact, for a split second, I worry that he is still not out. The next thing I know, he’s thrown on my chest by Scott and my midwife. Turns out he came out with such force and so much fluid behind him that my midwife could only catch an ankle and Scott ended up catch the rest of him like a football.

12:47 – I meet my son, Kendall. He looks up at me with the chubbiest cheeks and we both just stare at each other like the sky has just fallen. There is a wonderful picture my mom took of all three of us at this moment. Kendall and I both have the most vivid look of disbelief painted on our faces, and Scott is beaming from ear to ear. Scott’s lack of sweat and goo and the fact that he is clothed is a striking contrast against me and Kendall – both naked covered in all sorts of bodily fluids.

I clearly remember taking a good look at him and thinking, “Damn! You are huge!” He was 8 lbs 11 ounces and 21 inches long. I knew he would be big, but I didn’t know what big would look like. He was perfect in every way. He even had a pretty round head for a vaginal delivery. That’s probably because he shot out of me so quickly. He was completely alert. It was amazing!

At that moment, the pain was all worth it. I was so proud of myself for accomplishing a med-free birth. Scott was such a perfect coach, too. He got tons of compliments from the nurses and our midwife for doing such an amazing job. And I’m so glad that my mom got to be there for it all. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about having anyone other than Scott there through all of that, but looking back, I’m so glad it worked out for her to be there. It was the absolute perfect birth experience. I was so glad the pain was over….. or so I thought……

To be continued – stay tuned for the gruesome stories of post partum recovery.